


The Price of Fame

by TouchingOldMagic



Category: Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, Oneshot, but the movies exist, doesn't belong to any one particular gb canon, janine puts up with a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23677993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TouchingOldMagic/pseuds/TouchingOldMagic
Summary: Janine's already not having a good day when the man steps through the Firehouse front doors.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	The Price of Fame

The man who enters the Firehouse is taking his sweet time approaching the front desk, and that is Janine's first red flag.

He has a round face and thinning hair, and a bit of stubble on his cheeks that seems to be there for a rakish look and not from lack of personal hygiene. He's looking around in every direction as he takes slow steps toward her.

His eyes cast heavenward and his expression that borders on reverence, those are Janine's second warning.

By the time he gets to Ecto, she's sure of it. His gaze is captivated by the vehicle so much that he's doing a little shuffling side-step as he makes his way in her direction, like he can't bare to even turn away from the view for a moment to see where he's going. Finally he comes to the front fender and stops altogether, his hand raised in the air but held out motionless in front of him, as if he longs to touch but doesn't quite dare.

Janine's patience wears out. She clears her throat sharply. "Can I help you?"

He turns toward her eagerly. "Oh! Hello!" A smile spreads across his face, half embarrassed. "I, uh, I think my apartment has . . . a ghost?"

"We have a working phone, you know." She gestures to it on her desk with a flick of her fingers.

On better days, Janine is neutrally tolerant of fanboys. Despite the fact that they never bring a real case, they take up valuable time she doesn't have to sit around and chat, and they ask annoying--often personal--questions, she can understand the excitement of hoping to see a personal hero in the flesh.

His embarrassment is temporary, as she suspected it would be. It evaporates as he hurries toward her, stopping in front of her desk with his thighs almost touching the wood, too close for personal politeness. "Well yeah, I know! But I couldn't help it, I had to see this for myself."

Today has not been a good day, and she decidedly doesn't have the patience to deal with this.

He's explaining about his evidence now: cold spots, unexplained noises, things moving in his apartment or gone missing. He's also doing that thing that clients do that absolutely drives her up the wall: he's standing as straight as he can and craning his neck to try to see over the filing cabinets into the office behind her.

"Sir," she interrupts him, giving a pointed look over the top of her glasses. "You DO realize we charge a fee for coming out to do an investigation, whether or not we find any evidence of actual ghosts, correct?"

That stalls him. He focuses back on her face, his expression a little unsure. But then he gives her what he no doubt thinks is a bold, charming grin. "Uh, yeah, but, well . . . 'No job is too big, no fee is too big,' right?"

He even winks.

Janine scowls and stabs a finger at the filing cabinets behind her. His eyes follow her finger. There on the top of the filing cabinets sits a framed, handwritten sign. It reads "$1 Fine For Movie Quoting." Next to it sits a glass jar with a few crumpled dollar bills in the bottom.

The man looks more confused than chastened. Janine drops it and doesn't bother to explain. She gives him their investigative fee and allows herself a thin smile of satisfaction as the color drains from his face.

"Oh," he says, drooping like a wind-up toy running out of power. "Maybe, uh, maybe now isn't such a good time after all."

Before she might feel any sympathy for his hangdog air, she catches him eyeing the stairs as if he might try to make a dash for the next level in his desperation for more face-to-face interaction. Quickly she stands up. The sound of her chair on the floor snaps his attention back to her.

"If things get worse, you can _call_ for an appointment," she says, hoping the emphasis sinks in. And before he can ask, she adds crisply, "We don't give tours."

She has to walk the man all the way back to the front door, which takes more of the time she really doesn't have if she wants to finish all her paperwork before closing time, but she can't trust that he won't get distracted by the lockers or try for the stairs if she doesn't usher him along like a sheepdog with a clueless ewe. She cuts off his attempts at asking further questions about the business and blatantly ignores his hints that his is some unique haunting that the company should be interested in investigating.

His hand is resting on the doorknob when he turns to her with a last ditch effort. "Maybe if the guys have a job in my neighborhood sometime in the future, I can ask them about it? I wouldn't take up hardly any of their time. I could leave you my address--"

She gives a smile as pleasant as she can muster. "Oh, don't you worry about that, you can hear them coming!" It's all she can do not to push him through the doorway. He steps out into the roar of the New York afternoon and finally, finally Janine is able to shut the door firmly in his face, just as it looks like he's found another question to ask her. The raucous noise from the streets is cut off. Blessed silence.

Janine doesn't even make it back to her desk before her next interruption.

"And who was that?"

Peter Venkman stands at the top of the stairs, one elbow propped on the railing, chin in his hand, his voice pitched to carry down to her.

"Nobody, I was just taking out the trash," she tells him without looking up. She retakes her seat and turns resolutely toward her computer, hoping her employer will take the hint.

Instead she hears his footsteps as he takes his time sauntering down the stairs. Just great, he's bored. Janine really isn't destined to get her work done on time today.

"Janine," chides Peter, "what have we said about calling the clients names?" The question proves to her that he heard the entire conversation and has decided to give her a hard time about it.

She attempts to cut to the chase. "You know full well that wasn't a client. That was a fanboy, and you're lucky I didn't sic him on you." She would have, too, if she had known Peter was hovering on the upper level, spying on her while she dealt with the intrusion.

He reaches the ground level and strolls in front of her desk. "Oh I wouldn't dream of denying you the pleasure, Janine. I know how hard it is to be constrained to just your administrative duties here. Denied the thrill of the spotlight. Trapped back there behind your desk, like a caged tiger."

"Dr. Venkman, please stop referring to me as any sort of zoo animal."

"I'm just saying!" He holds up his hands innocently. "I know these little opportunities to flex your muscles are a bright spot in your day, and I would never take that away from you."

She rolls her eyes as she continues to type, but she doesn't contradict him.

He takes the silence as admission that he's right, as she figures he would. Triumphantly he turns to head to his office. "It's a good job, isn't it?" he drawls.

"Dr. Venkman!"

Surprised at the sharpness of her tone, he glances back toward her. She jerks her thumb at the sign and the jar on the filing cabinets.

"Aw dammit." He heaves a sigh and pulls his wallet out of his pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write in present tense but I attempted it to make the tone more comedic. Still not sure if that was successful. Probably not an experiment I will repeat.
> 
> Alternately subtitled: Have you ever wondered how annoying it would get if people were always quoting your life back at you?


End file.
